Chance noticed the moment her breathing changed.
She was listening inward.
It wasn’t Ember fully.
It was a stirring.
A stretch.
Like something inside her had been asleep for years and was slowly opening one eye.
Chance felt it too. The subtle tightening in the air between them. The invisible thread drawing taut instead of slack.
He slowed without meaning to.
Hope turned toward him just slightly, and the moonlight caught her face fully this time.
Her hair had come loose entirely now. Wild red waves brushing her shoulders, catching silver light like embers under frost. Her skin flushed from the cold. Her blue eyes — always fierce — looked almost luminous out here beyond the palace shadows.
She looked like she belonged to the woods.
Like she had been carved from fire and wind inste
