Kael
The courtyard looks different in morning light, less like a graveyard, more like a stage after the play has ended. Mist drifts between the black pillars. The air still hums faintly with the forest's magic, a low vibration that settles under my skin and refuses to leave.
The survivors trickle in, one by one. Bloodstained, trembling, clutching their prizes.
Aria walks among them, calm. Her rabbit sleeps against her chest as if it belongs there, its small head tucked beneath her chin. Not a scratch on it. Not a struggle. It's absurd; no one has ever tamed the forest's creatures. They're meant to fight, bite, and break the players. But hers is content like she is, somehow, the exception to the rule.
I should be used to impossible things. I am one. Yet watching her cradle tha
