“Little flame,” he greets, his voice rich with warmth. When I reach him, his arms are already open. I press my head to his chest, breathing in the familiar scent of smoke and leather. His hand cradles the back of my head, the other at my waist keeping me anchored to him as if the world itself might try to steal me away.
“You look at peace,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing the edge of my jaw.
“For the moment,” I say softly. “Though I think you’re to blame for that.”
His laugh is low, gravel-soft. “Then I should commit such crimes more often.”
Bracken approaches with a snort, his coat catching the light like burnished bronze. The great horse barely needing a lead to find his master. Vale’s hand lingers at the small of my back as he lifts me easily into the saddle. I can tell the healers have done their work—his movements are steady and strong, free of the pain that had shadowed him before.
He mounts behind me, and when his arm slides around my waist, the breath leaves me in a rush. It is different this time. When we’d ridden through the danger that gripped that first night, I’d clung to his back, terrified, blinded by fear and darkness. Now, sunlight crowns the mountain peaks, and I sit before him—his strength surrounding me, but no fear pressing between us. Only warmth. Only trust.
“Ready?” he asks near my ear, his breath stirring the loose strands of my hair.
I nod, though my voice barely rises above a whisper. “Always.”
Bracken steps forward with a sure-footed grace, the sound of hooves ringing against the stone as the gate gives way to open air and light.
The road unfurls ahead—broad and steady, winding down the mountainside. The air smells of moss and river spray, touched with the faint sweetness of blooming heather. As we descend, the view opens like a revelation. For a moment I forget to breathe.
Caerhollan stretches across the cliffside behind us, more magnificent than I had ever imagined. It wasn’t simply built upon the mountain—it was born from it. Towers rise where sheer rock should have fallen. Bridges of pale stone arch between peaks like the ribs of some sleeping giant. Windows gleaming in ascending rows, their panes reflecting the southern sun in shards of light.
I had thought myself prepared. I had tried to imagine this place, to make it smaller in my mind. Something I could carry without being overwhelmed. I failed.
The western peak—the royal wing—rises highest of all, its balconies catching the full burn of the day, while below, the stables and armory tunnel deep into the mountain’s heart, hidden yet vast. Waterfalls cut through the cliffs in thin veils of silver, their mist curling into the pinewood valleys below. From here, the entire palace looks alive—a living fortress breathing with the mountain that cradles it.
Something in me softens at the sight of it—the way the wildness I’ve always met with reverence is not conquered here, but joined. Stone and storm, crafted and ancient. Known and unknowable, married so seamlessly I can’t tell where the mountain ends and Caerhollan begins.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe. “I didn’t realize how much of it lies within the rock.”
Vale’s chin brushes my temple as he answers, his voice low and thoughtful. “Much of Caerhollan’s heart is buried. What stands above ground is only what the world is meant to see.”
I turn my head slightly toward him. “And what isn’t meant to be seen?”
His arm tightens faintly around me, his voice brushing against my ear. “Secrets. Old ones. The mountain keeps them better than I ever could.”
The words stir a quiet ache in me, curiosity threadingthrough affection. I want to ask more, but the rhythm of the horse beneath us and the warmth of him at my back silence the impulse. For now, I let myself simply exist there—in sunlight and breath, the world spilling wide before us, the weight of destiny and danger kept, for one brief ride, at bay.
I allow myself to sink back into his warmth as the path curves along the ridge, winding downward through sun-dappled pine and moss-slick stone. The world below unfurling in soft hues of green and gray, dotted with remnants of what once had been more than mountain and palace.
“What’s that?” My voice barely above a whisper as I point across a break in the trees to stones piled in a broken heap by more than nature alone. Lines of stone foundations, half-swallowed by ivy, and the faint outlines of streets that lead nowhere.
“Villages,” he says quietly. “Before the Fade, the valleys were full of them. Markets. Inns. The kind of noise that once carried music into the cliffs.”
It is difficult to imagine it now. The air is still, save for the rhythm of Bracken’s hooves and the cry of a hawk wheeling high above. The ruins below look like bones—white-gray against the earth, hollowed by silence.
“What happened to them?”
“The same thing that happened to everything,” he says. His voice isn’t sharp or bitter, just worn thin at the edges. “War. Hunger. Fear.”
We pass a broken archway where vines curl through what might once have been a watchtower. The stone has darkened with age, the mountain slowly reclaiming what had been taken from it. Beauty, sorrow… and the strange comfort of the mountain holding what was never meant to be lost.
“Even those in the lower valleys could not survive when the trade routes failed. The famine came in waves. People held off as long as they could, but ultimately the High Hold became sanctuary to most.”
His hand tightens around my waist, unconsciously, as if he were anchoring himself to the present. “We buried more than we saved.”
The quiet stretches between us, the kind that asks to be filled yet feels sacred inits stillness.
“And now?” I ask softly. “Are there others left beyond these mountains?”
