Hope's POV.
The training ground is still littered with broken branches and churned-up earth—evidence of the intense session Malakar and I just finished. My muscles ache, sweat clings to my skin, and yet I hardly feel any of it. Not really.
Because my mind is miles away.
I pace the clearing with slow, uneven steps, trying to quiet the storm inside my chest. The world around me is calm now — the wind whispering through the trees, birds flitting through the canopy — but none of it touches me. None of it can reach the place where the ache has rooted itself.
“Hope,” Malakar’s voice breaks through the haze, low and edged with concern. “You’ve been somewhere else all day.”
I stop walking, but I don’t face him. I stare at the ground, at the scuff marks our sparring left in the dirt, and try t
