AFTER THE BREAK
Kael did not remember lifting her.
One moment he was kneeling in the shattered clearing, Ravik’s blood still smoking where it had touched the fractured stone. The next, Elara was in his arms, her body light and frighteningly still against his chest.
The moonlight had not faded.
It clung to her.
Even now, as he carried her through the forest toward Nightfall, silver shimmered faintly across her skin like the last reflection of a dying star. It wasn’t visible to everyone, he knew that instinctively but to him, through the bond, she burned.
Not weak.
Not broken.
Changed.
Branches snapped beneath his boots as warriors flanked him. No one spoke. The forest itself seemed to recoil from what had happened in that clearing. The air smelled of torn earth and something sharpe
