Elista’s POV
The valley was still sleeping when we stopped to rest under an old pine. Frost clung to the roots like silver lace, and a pale blush of dawn barely grazed the sky. Lyra laid the children down gently, wrapping them in her cloak even though she herself was shaking from the cold. She didn’t complain. She never did. That was the terrifying thing about Lyra — she carried her pain like wolves carry bones: deeply buried, never forgotten.
I sat a small distance away, facing the forest we had escaped from. Smoke still curled faintly above the treetops in the far distance, where Dimitri had vanished in that impossible burst of light. The air still tasted of sorcery and burning.
No one spoke for a long time.
Lyra’s gaze never left the children’s faces. She touched Mira’s hair with ha
